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Research Roundup: GenAI use, public-cloud spend, tech debt’s reach, employee cyber violations

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Research Roundup: GenAI use, public-cloud spend, tech debt’s reach, employee cyber violations

Catch up on the latest research from leading IT market watchers and analysts. 

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Generative AI is already used by two-thirds of organizations. Public-cloud spending levels are forecast to rise 20% next year. Technical debt is a challenge for nearly 75% of organizations. And info-security violations by staff are nearly as common as attacks by external hackers.

That’s some of the latest research from leading IT market watchers and analysts. And here’s your Performance Intensive Computing roundup.

GenAI already used by 2/3 of orgs

You already know that Generative AI is hot, but did you also realize that over two-thirds of organizations are already using it?

In a survey of over 2,800 tech professionals, publisher O’Reilly found that fully 67% of respondents say their organizations currently use GenAI. Of this group, about 1 in 3 also say their organizations have been working with AI for less than a year.

Respondents to the survey were users of O’Reilly products worldwide. About a third of respondents (34%) work in the software industry; 14% in financial services; 11% in hardware; and the rest in industries that include telecom, public sector/government, healthcare and education. By region, nearly three-quarters of respondents (74%) are based in either North America or Europe.

Other key findings from the O’Reilly survey (multiple replies were permitted):

  • GenAI’s top use cases: Programming (77%); data analysis (70%); customer-facing applications (65%)
  • GenAI’s top use constraints: Lack of appropriate use cases (53%); legal issues, risk and compliance (38%)
  • GenAI’s top risks: Unexpected outcomes (49%); security vulnerabilities (48%); safety and reliability (46%)

Public-cloud spending to rise 20% next year

Total worldwide spending by end users on the public cloud will rise 20% between this year and next, predicts Gartner. This year, the market watcher adds, user spending on the public cloud will total $563.6 billion. Next year, this spend will rise to $678.8 billion.

“Cloud has become essentially indispensable,” says Gartner analyst Sid Nag.

Gartner predicts that all segments of the public-cloud market will grow in 2024. But it also says 2 segments will grow especially fast next year: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), predicted to grow nearly 27%; and Platform as a Service (PaaS), forecast to grow nearly 22.

What’s driving all this growth? One factor: industry cloud platforms. These combine Software as a Service (SaaS), PaaS and IaaS into product offerings aimed at specific industries.

For example, enterprise software vendor SAP offers industry clouds for banking, manufacturing, HR and more. The company says its life-sciences cloud helped Boston Scientific, a manufacturer of medical devices, reduce inventory and order-management operational workloads by as much as 45%.

Gartner expects that by 2027, industry cloud platforms will be used by more than 70% of enterprises, up from just 15% of enterprises in 2022.

Technical debt: a big challenge

Technical debt—older hardware and software that no longer supports an organization’s strategies—is a bigger problem than you might think.

In a recent survey of 523 IT professionals, conducted for IT trade association CompTIA, nearly three-quarters of respondents (74%) said their organizations find tech debt to be a challenge.

An even higher percentage of respondents (78%) say their work is impeded by “cowboy IT,” shadow IT and other tech moves made without the IT department’s involvement. Not incidentally, these are among the main causes of technical debt, mainly because they are not acquired as part of the organization’s strategic goals.

Fortunately, IT pros are also fighting back. Over two-thirds of respondents (68%) said they’ve made erasing technical debt a moderate or high priority.

Cybersecurity: Staff violations nearly as widespread as hacks

Employee violations of organizations’ information-security policies are nearly as common as attacks by external hackers, finds a new survey by security vendor Kaspersky. 

The survey reached 1,260 IT and security professionals worldwide. It found that 26% of cyber incidents in business occurred due to employees intentionally violating their organizations’ security protocols. By contrast, hacker attacks accounted for 30%—not much higher.

Here’s the breakdown of those policy violations by employees, according to Kaspersky (multiple replies were permitted):

  • 25%: Using weak passwords or failing to change passwords regularly
  • 24%: Visiting unsecured websites
  • 24%: Using unauthorized systems for sharing data
  • 21%: Failing to update system software and applications
  • 21%: Accessing data with an unauthorized device
  • 20%: Sending data (such as email addresses) to personal systems
  • 20%: Intentionally engaging in malicious behavior for personal gain

The issue is far from theoretical. Among respondents to the Kaspersky survey, fully a third (33%) say they’ve suffered 2 or 3 cyber incidents in the last 2 years. And a quarter (25%) say that during the same time period, they’ve been the subject of at least 4 cyberattacks.

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Choose the right AMD EPYC server processor for the job

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Choose the right AMD EPYC server processor for the job

AMD designed its 4th generation EPYC processors to address a variety of workloads, ranging from general-purpose computing to high-performance data center, AI and the edge. Here's how to pick the right one.

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Specifying AMD EPYC processors for your customers is a great first step. The vital second step is choosing the right AMD EPYC processor series for each customer’s unique requirements. It’s not a case of one-size-fits-all.

That’s because AMD designed its 4th generation EPYC processors to address a variety of workloads. These range from general-purpose computing to high-performance data center, AI and the edge.

The AMD server processor portfolio also focuses on energy efficiency, security and what the company calls leadership performance. The latter has allowed AMD to achieve more than 300 world records across industry benchmarks.

Four ways to go

Fortunately, selecting the right AMD 4th gen EPYC CPU isn’t that complicated. The company has organized its server CPUs into just 4 groups.

Each group offers a selection of speeds, core counts, cache sizes, and thermal design power (TDP) best suited to specific tasks including design simulation and cloud computing.

1) AMD EPYC 9004 Series processors: general purpose & enterprise computing

AMD counts the EPYC 9004 Series as its flagship CPU. These server processors are designed to accelerate workloads and speed results for business-critical applications in both enterprise data centers and the cloud.

AMD says the EPYC 9004 series speeds time-to-market by 2.1x and performance-per-system-watt by 2.7x, helping to lower server energy costs.

2) AMD EPYC 9004 Series processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology: technical computing

Your customers can deploy AMD EPYC 9004 Series processors with AMD 3D V-Cache Technology to meet complex design and simulation challenges. Breakthrough performance comes courtesy of up to 96 ‘Zen 4’ cores and a ground-breaking 1152MB of L3 cache per socket.

These processors are arguably some of the most powerful in the world. They can help your customers accelerate product design even as they help reduce both capital and operational expenditures.

3) AMD EPYC 97x4 Series processors: cloud-native computing

System-level thread density, extensive x86 software compatibility, and a full ecosystem of services make the AMD EPYC 97x4 Series processors ideal for cloud-native environments. Customers focused on performance and energy efficiency can deploy this 4th gen AMD silicon to foster cloud-native work-load growth and infrastructure consolidation.

The 97x4 series includes 3 models with up to 128 cores operating at 2.25GHz. Each has a 256MB L3 cache and a TDP between 320W and 360W.

All 3 processors in this series support a suite of hardware-level security features called AMD Infinity Guard. They also support AMD Infinity Architecture, which lets system builders and cloud architects get maximum power while still ensuring security.

4) AMD EPYC 8004 Series Processors: cloud services, intelligent edge & telco

If your customers are looking for a highly energy-efficient CPU for single-socket platforms, AMD’s EPYC 8004 processors may be the right fit.

AMD engineered this series to power intelligent edge and telco servers like the Supermicro H13 WIO. As such, the processors are designed for space- and power-constrained deployments. Combined with their ability to provide performance in a power envelope as low as 70 watts, the 8004 series is ideally suited to the task.

Your customers can choose from models with 8, 16, 24, 48 or 64 ‘Zen 4c’ cores. The cores are supported by up to 1.152GB of DDR5 memory and up to 128MB of L3 cache.

Right tool for the job

Considering the total cost of ownership (TCO) when deploying a local or remote data center is essential. Choosing a processor well-suited to your customer’s workload can help them save time and money in the long run.

AMD’s 4th generation EPYC processor series includes a wide array of options. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pick the CPU that best suits your customer’s needs.

Good luck!

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Supermicro expands rack capacity so you get servers faster & greener

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Supermicro expands rack capacity so you get servers faster & greener

Supermicro recently announced that it has expanded its capacity and can now provide 5,000 fully integrated, liquid-cooled racks per month. 

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Would you and your customers like to get faster delivery of Supermicro rackmount systems while also helping the environment?

Now you can.

Supermicro recently announced that it has expanded its capacity and can now provide 5,000 fully integrated, liquid-cooled racks per month. That’s because Supermicro now has integration facilities in four countries: the United States, Taiwan, Netherlands and Malaysia.

Supermicro also keeps in stock a certain number of commonly ordered rack configurations, what the company calls “golden SKUs.”

Between those systems and the company’s global locations, Supermicro can now deliver its rackmount systems both faster and over shorter distances. For example, Supermicro could ship a system to a customer in, say, Michigan from its Silicon Valley facility rather than from halfway around the world from Taiwan.

That shorter shipping distance also means less fuel needed and less polluting greenhouse gas produced. That’s an environmental win-win.

Get rolling with a rack

You can rely on Supermicro for data center IT solutions including on-site delivery, deployment, integration and benchmarking to achieve optimal operational efficiency.

Here’s how Supermicro’s rack delivery works in 3 steps:

Step 1: You start with proven reference designs for rapid installation while considering your clients' unique business objectives.

Step 2: You then work collaboratively with Supermicro-qualified experts to design optimized solutions for specific workloads. A prototype is designed and created for small-scale testing.

Step 3: Upon delivery, the racks need only be connected to power, networking and the liquid-cooling infrastructure. In other words, it’s a nearly seamless plug-and-play methodology.

Two areas of special interest for Supermicro are AI and liquid cooling. For AI, Supermicro plans to support AMD’s forthcoming MI300X GPU/CPU system, expected to be formally announced later this year. As for liquid cooling, it’s a technology Supermicro expects will soon be adopted by as many as 1 in 5 data centers worldwide as CPUs and GPUs continue to get hotter.

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Tech Explainer: What’s the deal with AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology?

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Tech Explainer: What’s the deal with AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology?

AMD’s unique 3D V-Cache technology offers a marked performance boost. By stacking the cache vertically, AMD produces a 3x increase in the amount of a CPU’s L3 cache. This enables faster calculations and a noticeable increase in overall processor speed. 

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The more cache, the merrier.

The cache’s job is to store as much data as possible directly onto the CPU die. And the cache’s proximity to the processor makes it an ideal data-delivery system.

That might not be much of a sales pitch to folks who ask comparatively little of their devices. But when it comes to high-performance data centers, extra on-die storage can make a world of difference.

That’s because the faster and more efficiently a CPU can access data, the quicker it can complete the complex calculations required to return the requested result.

The trouble is, the usefulness of a cache has so far been limited by its small storage capacity. Unlike other computer storage devices, such as RAM and SSDs, your average cache is relatively tiny.

In a modern computer, it’s not uncommon to get 1 to 4 terabytes of storage space. But on that same machine, the processor cache would typically hold only 50 to 60 megabytes.

It stands to reason, then, that a cache able to hold 3 times as much data could dramatically increase the system’s efficiency. And that’s what AMD’s latest innovation, known as AMD 3D V-Cache technology, can do.

A whole new dimension

Modern caches are designed with a succession of stages labeled L1, L2 and L3. The “L” stands for Level.

L1 is closest to the processor and offers the fastest speed, yet it also provides the smallest capacity. L2 is a bit bigger, but also a bit slower. And L3 cache always provides the most data storage.

AMD calls its innovation 3D V-Cache because of the unique design. All 3 layers of the L3 cache are stacked vertically on the die.

This vertical stacking also means that all 3 layers are the same distance from the processor. As a result, all 3 also offer the same speeds.

What’s more, AMD 3D V-Cache’s extra capacity enables the processor to store and stream more instructions, yet without increasing the die’s size. As a result, the CPU does its job much faster and more efficiently than could a similarly powered processor with a traditional cache.

Out in the wild

AMD first introduced 3D V-Cache technology in 2022 as part of its gaming-focused Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor. That first iteration offered a 96MB L3 cache feeding 8 cores, each with a maximum clock speed of 4.5GHz.

This past February, AMD introduced its Ryzen 7000-series processors for content creators. Two of those CPUs—the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and 7900X3D—featured L3 caches with 128MB of capacity.

But AMD knows the market for 3D V-Cache-enabled chips is far bigger than just gamers. Power-hungry data centers are cropping up everywhere, helping to power our private and public clouds, AI-based applications and other miraculous virtual innovations.

To power those data centers, AMD now offers 4th generation EPYC processors featuring AMD 3D V-Cache technology. These data-crunching monsters are truly on the cutting edge. The biggest of them all, the AMD EPYC 9654P, packs 96 cores and an astounding L3 cache of 348MB.

Taking the show on the road

With the introduction of the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D mobile processor, AMD announced to the world that speed and portability aren’t mutually exclusive. The first laptop gaming chip is a 16-core phenom featuring AMD 3D V-Cache Technology, which adds an impressive 128MB of L3 cache.

This past August, AMD launched its new silicon marvel inside the ROG STRIX SCAR 17 X3D, a titanically powerful gaming laptop with a 240Hz QHD display. AMD managed to get a mobile version to market barely a year after the launch of its first AMD 3D V-Cache Technology-enabled desktop chip. That’s an impressive cadence by any standard.

This is a laptop that was always going to be faster than most. But the addition of the Ryzen chip makes the STRIX SCAR one of the fastest mobile gaming rigs on this—or any other—planet.

Go ahead, try to find one that’s faster.

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Meet the newest 3rd gen AMD EPYC processors

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Meet the newest 3rd gen AMD EPYC processors

AMD extends 3rd Gen EPYC CPU lineup to deliver greater price/performance for mainstream server applications.

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Are you or your customers looking for server processors that offer great price/performance, modern security, and energy efficiency for less technically demanding mainstream business workloads?

If so, AMD has some new server CPUs for you.

“We have seen a clear opportunity to give our customers more options,” says Dan McNamara, GM of AMD’s server business.

Expanded value options

The six new SKUs are actually part of AMD’s 3rd generation EPYC processor family. Originally introduced nearly three years ago, the 3rd gen AMD EPYCs have since been joined by the company’s 4th Gen.

So why might your customers be interested in new 3rd gen CPUs from AMD?

Several reasons. One, they might not need the latest AMD processor features, which include support for both DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen 5 connectivity. The new members of AMD’s 3rd gen EPYC family, which use the company’s Zen 3 cores, support up to 8 channels of the older DDR4 memory and up to 128 lanes of PCIe Gen 4.

By contrast, AMD’s 4th gen EPYC processors, with their Zen 4 cores, support both DDR5 and PCIe Gen 5. For some companies, AMD says, the upgrade to these newer technologies is “still high on the cost curve.”

Price/performance, too

Another reason is to get in on the new price/performance gains. Four of the six new SKUs are 8- and 16-core processors, and their retail prices range from just under $340 to just over $600. The other two CPUs offer 48 and 56 cores.

Yet another reason: modern security features that include AMD Infinity Guard. It’s a full suite of security features, built into silicon, that includes encrypted virtualization; nested paging; memory encryption; and AMD Shadow Stack, which offers hardware-enforced protection against malware.

The new AMD processors are fully compatible with existing AMD EPYC 7003 series-based server systems. And AMD’s major partners, including Supermicro, have said they’ll support the new 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors in their enterprise server solutions.

Supermicro works closely with AMD to offer a wide range of application-optimized servers in its H13 product line. These systems, which support the new AMD EPYC processors, are designed for applications that need powerful processing performance, but may have thermal constraints.

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Supermicro server powered by AMD Ryzen CPU gets high marks in STAC-N1 audit

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Supermicro server powered by AMD Ryzen CPU gets high marks in STAC-N1 audit

A new benchmark test finds that Supermicro servers powered by AMD Ryzen processors offer super-low latency (where lower is better) and super-high throughput (where higher is better).

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Supermicro servers powered by AMD Ryzen processors offer super-low latency (where lower is better) and super-high throughput (where higher is better).

But don’t take our word for it.

Those are some of the findings in a new benchmark test conducted by the Strategic Technology Analysis Center, better known by its acronym, STAC.

Test configuration

AMD recently asked STAC to perform STAC-N1 Benchmark tests on a solution utilizing AMD Ryzen processors in Supermicro A+ Supermicro AS -2015A-TR servers, each configured with the following:

  • One 16-core AMD Ryzen 7950X processor @ 4.5 GHz (5.7 GHz Boost)
  • One AMD Xilinx XtremeScale X2522-25G-PLUS adapter with OpenOnload 8.1.1.17
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2

Communication was over 25GbE cross connects. Forward error correction (FEC) was disabled.

The SUT (system under test) ID number was AMD231005.

About the benchmark

STAC conducted the benchmark test using its STAC-N1 benchmark, which tests a network stack using a market data style workload.

STAC-N1 is designed to be vendor-neutral. And it can test different combinations of network API, I/O mode, network stack, OS and system hardware.

Once the benchmark is run, STAC compares the results against all publicly disclosed results of the same test.

The results

And here are the benchmark test results for the system with Supermicro AS -2015A-TR servers powered by AMD Ryzen processors:

  • Latency: The lowest for a base rate of 100,000 messages per second. This was true for all four measures: mean, median, 99th percentile, and maximum latency. (Benchmark ID STAC.N1.Ꞵ1.PINGPONG.LAT1.)
  • Throughput: The highest maximum tested at 1.6 million messages per second. (Benchmark ID STAC.N1.Ꞵ1.PINGPONG.TPUT1.)
  • SupplyToReceive latency: The lowest at the highest rate tested. Again, this was the case for all four measures: mean, median, 99th percentile, and maximum. (Benchmark ID STAC.N1.Ꞵ1.PINGPONG.LAT2.)
  • SendToReceive latency: Also the lowest at the highest rate tested. And again, for all four measures: mean, median, 99th percentile, and maximum. (Benchmark ID STAC.N1.Ꞵ1.PINGPONG.LAT3.)

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Note: STAC and all STAC names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Strategic Technology Analysis Center.

 

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Research Roundup: GenAI, 10 IT trends, cybersecurity, CEOs, and privacy

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Research Roundup: GenAI, 10 IT trends, cybersecurity, CEOs, and privacy

Catch up on the latest IT research and analysis from leading market watchers.

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Generative AI is booming. Ten trends will soon rock your customers’ world. While cybersecurity spending is up, CEOs lack cyber confidence. And Americans worry about their privacy.

That’s some of the latest from leading IT market watchers. And here’s your Performance Intensive Computing roundup.

GenAI market to hit $143B by 2027

Generative AI is quickly becoming a big business.

Market watcher IDC expects that spending on GenAI software, related hardware and services will this year reach nearly $16 billion worldwide.

Looking ahead, IDC predicts GenAI spending will reach $143 billion by 2027. That would represent a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the years 2023 to 2027 of 73%—more than twice the growth rate in overall AI spending.

“GenAI is more than a fleeting trend or mere hype,” says IDC group VP Ritu Jyoti.

Initially, IDC expects, the largest GenAI investments will go to infrastructure, including hardware, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and system infrastructure software. Then, once the foundation has been laid, spending is expected to shift to AI services.

Top 10 IT trends

What will be top-of-mind for your customers next year and beyond? Researchers at Gartner recently made 10 predictions:

1. AI productivity will be a primary economic indicator of national power.

2. Generative AI tools will reduce modernization costs by 70%.

3. Enterprises will collectively spend over $30 billion fighting “malinformation.”

4. Nearly half of all CISOs will expand their responsibilities beyond cybersecurity, driven by regulatory pressure and expanding attack surfaces.

5. Unionization among knowledge workers will increase by 1,000%, motivated by fears of job loss due to the adoption of GenAI.

6. About one in three workers will leverage “digital charisma” to advance their careers.

7. One in four large corporations will actively recruit neurodivergent talent—including people with conditions such as autism and ADHD—to improve business performance.

8. Nearly a third of large companies will create dedicated business units or sales channels for machine customers.

9. Due to labor shortages, robots will soon outnumber human workers in three industries: manufacturing, retail and logistics.

10. Monthly electricity rationing will affect fully half the G20 nations. One result: Energy efficiency will become a serious competitive advantage.

Cybersecurity spending in Q2 rose nearly 12%

Heightened threat levels are leading to heightened cybersecurity spending.

In the second quarter of this year, global spending on cybersecurity products and services rose 11.6% year-on-year, reaching a total of $19 billion worldwide, according to Canalys.

A mere 12 vendors received nearly half that spending, Canalys says. They include Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Cisco and Microsoft.

One factor driving the spending is fear, the result of a 50% increase in the number of publicly reported ransomware attacks. Also, the number of breached data records more than doubled in the first 8 months of this year, Canalys says.

All this increased spending should be good for channel sellers. Canalys finds that nearly 92% of all cybersecurity spending worldwide goes through the IT channel.

CEOs lack cyber confidence

Here’s another reason why cybersecurity spending should be rising: Roughly three-quarters of CEOs (74%) say they’re concerned about their organizations’ ability to avert or minimize damage from a cyberattack.

That’s according to a new survey, conducted by Accenture, of 1,000 CEOs from large organizations worldwide.

Two findings from the Accenture survey really stand out:

  • Nearly two-thirds of CEOs (60%) say their organizations do not incorporate cybersecurity into their business strategies, products or services
  • Nearly half (44%) the CEOs believe cybersecurity can be handled with episodic interventions rather than with ongoing, continuous attention.

Despite those weaknesses, nearly all the surveyed CEOs (96%) say they believe cybersecurity is critical to their organizations’ growth and stability. Mind the gap!

How do Americans view data privacy?

Fully eight in 10 Americans (81%) are concerned about how companies use their personal data. And seven in 10 (71%) are concerned about how their personal data is used by the government.

So finds a new Pew Research Center survey of 5,100 U.S. adults. The study, conducted in May and published this month, sought to discover how Americans think about privacy and personal data.

Pew also found that Americans don’t understand how their personal data is used. In the survey, nearly eight in 10 respondents (77%) said they have little to no understanding of how the government uses their personal data. And two-thirds (67%) said the same thing about businesses, up from 59% a year ago.

Another key finding: Americans don’t trust social media CEOs. Over three-quarters of Pew’s respondents (77%) say they have very little or no trust that leaders of social-medica companies will publicly admit mistakes and take responsibility.

And about the same number (76%) believe social-media companies would sell their personal data without their consent.

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Tech Explainer: How does design simulation work? Part 2

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Tech Explainer: How does design simulation work? Part 2

Cutting-edge technology powers the virtual design process.

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The market for simulation software is hot, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.2%, according to Markets and Markets. The research firm predicts that the global market for simulation software, worth an estimated $18.1 billion this year, will rise to $33.5 billion by 2027.

No surprise, then, that tech titans AMD and Supermicro would design an advanced hardware platform to meet the demands of this burgeoning software market.

AMD and Supermicro have teamed up with Ansys Inc., a U.S.-based designer of engineering simulation software. One result of this three-way collaboration is the Supermicro SuperBlade.

Shanthi Adloori, senior director of product management at Supermicro, calls the SuperBlade “one of the fastest simulation-in-a-box solutions.”

Adloori adds: “With a high core count, large memory capacity and faster memory bandwidth, you can reduce the time it takes to complete a simulation .”

One very super blade

Adloori isn’t overstating the case.

Supermicro’s SuperBlade can house up to 20 hot-swappable nodes in its 8U chassis. Each of those blades can be equipped with AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Instinct GPUs. In fact, SuperBlade is the only platform of its kind designed to support both GPU and non-GPU nodes in the same enclosure.

Supermicro SuperBlade’s other tech specs may be less glamorous, but they’re no less impressive. When it comes to memory, each blade can address a maximum of either 8TB or 16TB of DDR5-4800 memory.

Each node can also house 2 NVMe/SAS/SATA drives and as many as eight 3000W Titanium Level power supplies.

Because networking is an essential element of enterprise-grade design simulation, SuperBlade includes redundant 25Gb/10Gb/1Gb Ethernet switches and up to 200Gbps/100Gbps InfiniBand networking for HPC applications.

For smaller operations, the Supermicro SuperBlade is also available in smaller configurations, including  6U and 4U. These versions pack fewer nodes, which ultimately means they’re able to bring less power to bear. But, hey, not every design team makes passenger jets for a living.

It’s all about the silicon

If Supermicro’s SuperBlade is the tractor-trailer of design simulation technology, then AMD CPUs and GPUs are the engines under the hood.

The differing designs of these chips lend themselves to specific core competencies. CPUs can focus tremendous power on a few tasks at a time. Sure, they can multitask. But there’s a limit to how many simultaneous operations they can address.

AMD bills its EPYC 7003 Series CPUs as the world’s highest-performing server processors for technical computing. The addition of AMD 3D V-Cache technology delivers an expanded L3 cache to help accelerate simulations.

GPUs, on the other hand, are required when running simulations where certain tasks require simultaneous operations to be performed. The AMD Instinct MI250X Accelerator contains 220 compute units with 14,080 stream processors.

Instead of throwing a ton of processing power at a small number of operations, the AMD Instinct can address thousands of less resource-intensive operations simultaneously. It’s that capability that makes GPUs ideal for HPC and AI-enabled operations, an increasingly essential element of modern design simulation.

The future of design simulation

The development of advanced hardware like SuperBlade and the AMD CPUs and GPUs that power it will continue to progress as more organizations adopt design simulation as their go-to product development platform.

That progression will continue to manifest in global companies like Boeing and Volkswagen. But it will also find its way into small startups and single users.

Also, as the required hardware becomes more accessible, simulation software should become more efficient.

This confluence of market trends could empower millions of independent designers with the ability to perform complex design, testing and validation functions.

The result could be nothing short of a design revolution.

Part 1 of this two-part Tech Explainer explores the many ways design simulation is used to create new products, from tiny heart valves to massive passenger aircraft. Read Part 1 now.

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OCP Global Summit demos the power of collaboration for the data center

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OCP Global Summit demos the power of collaboration for the data center

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Thousands of data-center professionals will gather in Silicon Valley this month for the 2023 OCP Global Summit.

This in-person event, sponsored by the Open Compute Project, will be held in San Jose, Calif., on Oct. 17 – 19.

The theme for this year’s conference: “Scaling innovation through collaboration.”

About OCP

OCP members share data center products and best practices that apply open standards. The group’s projects include server design, data storage, rack design, energy-efficient data centers, open networking switches, and servers.

The OCP requires that all contributions meet at least 3 of its 5 core tenets:

  • Efficiency: including power delivery, thermal, platform, overall cost, latencies
  • Impact: including efficiency gains, use of new tech, more robust supply chain
  • Openness: strive to comply with existing open interfaces
  • Scalability: can be used in large-scale deployments.
  • Sustainability: Be transparent about environmental impact, and aspire to improve over time.

OCP began as a Facebook project, launched in 2009, to build an energy-efficient data center. That led to the opening of a Facebook data center in Pineville, Ore., that the company says is 24% less expensive to run than its previous facilities.

That led to OCP being founded in 2011. Today the nonprofit organization has nearly 300 corporate members and over 6,000 active participants. Membership is available in four levels — community, silver, gold and platinum.

OCP’s membership list is a veritable who’s who of tech. Members include Amazon, AMD, Arm, AT&T, Cisco, Dell, Google, HPE, IBM, Lenovo, Meta, Supermicro and Tencent.

AMD & Supermicro participating

Among the keynote speakers at this year’s OCP Global Summit will be Forrest Norrod, executive VP and GM of the data center solutions business group at AMD. He’ll be giving a presentation on Oct. 17 entitled, “Together we advance the modern data center.”

Also, Supermicro will be showing three of its servers at the OCP Global Summit:

  • Supermicro CloudDC A+ Server: Designed for data center, web server, cloud computing and more, this 1U rackmount server is powered by a single AMD EPYC 9004 Series processor.
  • Supermicro Hyper A+ Server: This 2U server is intended for virtualization, AI inference and machine learning, software-defined storage, cloud computing, and use as an enterprise server. It’s powered by dual AMD EPYC 9004 Series processors.
  • Supemicro Storage A+ Server: This 2U storage device can handle software-defined storage, cloud, in-memory computing, data-intensive HPC workloads, and NVMe-over-fabric solutions. It’s powered by a single AMD EPYC 9004 Series processor.

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Why M&E content creators need high-end VDI, rendering & storage

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Why M&E content creators need high-end VDI, rendering & storage

Content creators in media and entertainment need lots of compute, storage and networking. Supermicro servers with AMD EPYC processors are enhancing the creativity of these content creators by offering improved rendering and high-speed storage. These systems empower the production of creative ideas.

 

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When content creators at media and entertainment (M&E) organizations create videos and films, they’re also competing for attention. And today that requires a lot of technology.

Making a full-length animated film involves no fewer than 14 complex steps, including 3D modeling, texturing, animating, visual effects and rendering. The whole process can take years. And it requires a serious quantity of high-end compute, storage and software.

From an IT perspective, three of the most compute-intensive activities for M&E content creators are VDI, rendering and storage. Let’s take a look at each.

* Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI): While content creators work on personal workstations, they need the kind of processing power and storage capacity available from a rackmount server. That’s what they get with VDI.

VDI separates the desktop and associated software from the physical client device by hosting the desktop environment and applications on a central server. These assets are then delivered to the desktop workstation over a network.

To power VDI setups, Supermicro offers a 4U GPU server with up to 8 PCIe GPUs. The Supermicro AS -4125GS-TNRT server packs a pair of AMD EPYC 9004 processors, Nvidia RTX 6000 GPUs, and 6TB of DDR5 memory.

* Rendering: The last stage of film production, rendering is where the individual 3D images created on a computer are transformed into the stream of 2D images ready to be shown to audiences. This process, conducted pixel by pixel, is time-consuming and resource-hungry. It requires powerful servers, lots of storage capacity and fast networking.

For rendering, Supermicro offers its 2U Hyper system, the AS -2125HS-TNR. It’s configured with dual AMD EPYC 9004 processors, up to 6TB of memory, and your choice of NVMe, SATA or SAS storage.

* Storage: Content creation involves creating, storing and manipulating huge volumes of data. So the first requirement is simply having a great deal of storage capacity. But it’s also important to be able to retrieve and access that data quickly.

For these kinds of storage challenges, Supermicro offers Petascale storage servers based on AMD EPYC processors. They can pack up to 16 hot-swappable E3.S (7.5mm) NVMe drive bays. And they’ve been designed to store, process and move vast amounts of data.

M&E content creators are always looking to attract more attention. They’re getting help from today’s most advanced technology.

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